


Ticket to Destiny

by raven_aorla



Category: Steam Powered Giraffe
Genre: F/M, Gen, What Was I Thinking?, all the SPG verses mutated into one entity
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-01
Updated: 2013-04-01
Packaged: 2017-12-07 03:48:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/743848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>People say Captain Albert Alexander went down in the sea at a ripe old age, the victim of a storm and a giant octopus.</p><p>People say Rex Marksley died an old man, alone on the prairie.</p><p>People say Lily Airheart disappeared, having flown her plane much too high.</p><p>People are wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ticket to Destiny

**Author's Note:**

> Not my characters. Was originally a tumblr post I made that got massive (by my standards) support from the fanmily and much begging for someone to expand upon the concept. So here we go.

Rex had woken in unexpected, menacing locations before, usually as a result of a bunch of bad guys thinking bargaining with him, or sometimes roughing him up, would work out for them better than just straight-up trying to kill him. 

He wasn't tied to the chair, though, and he still had his guns and his Miraculous Invention. So either this wasn't the work of a bunch of bad guys or it was the work of a bunch of really incompetent bad guys.

Also there were two other people waking up in chairs around the large table they were arranged around in the shadowy room, the air dry and a touch chillier than was comfortable. One was a man roughly the same age as Rex, with a carefully-groomed goatee and what looked like a naval uniform from a bygone era, like in the production of The HMS Pinafore Coinsley had dragged him to, claiming Rex needed more culture in his life. To the accountant's credit, the play had turned out to be pretty funny.

The other, a woman, had clothes of a type Rex had never seen before. Her skirt was shorter than any he'd seen even on ladies of the most negotiable virtue, though she didn't have a heavily painted face like they usually had and her hair was loose and tangled as if recently caught in a windstorm, if somewhat contained by a leather helmet with flaps covering her ears and goggles strapped across her forehead. Even more oddly, through the gap in the partially unfastened calfskin jacket that allowed a glimpse of her bodice, a circular blue glow emanated.

"What in the blazes is going on?" the seaman exclaimed, sounding English and more annoyed than frightened.

The strange woman, clearly American but from back East, said, "I don't really know either. I was fixing my plane and I woke up here."

Before Rex could ask her what she meant, a door hidden in the shadows swung open. "I'm sorry to upset you, but the journey through time and space is significantly easier if you're unconscious when it happens." There was a click as he shut the door behind him again.  
"Are you saying, mister, that you plucked us out of our proper points of existence and put us all together?" Rex asked.

As the man joined them at the table, his face became visible. He had dark skin, a short and grizzled beard, a top hat and long black coat, as well as an eyepatch. That for some reason had a golden tuba embroidered on it. "That would be an adequate summary, yes. Mr. Rex Marksley, Captain Albert Alexander, and Miss Lily Airheart, I realize this is a disconcerting situation, but there isn't time to ease all of you into the circumstances. I need to talk to you about the Suspenders Initiative."

Miss Airheart cleared her throat. "What do we call you? And do we have a choice in cooperating with your plans?"

"Call me 'Uncle Ralphie' if you like. That's what I generally go by. Of course you have a choice, but if the Suspenders Initiative fails all reality as we know it may cease to exist."

Captain Alexander raised his hand as if he were a schoolboy. "Is there any particular reason this mission is named after, well, undergarments?"

With a stifled giggled, Miss Airheart said, "In American English that means what you'd call 'braces'."

"Ah. That still doesn't make much sense but at least it's not quite so indecent." 

"How do you know that?" Rex couldn't help but ask Miss Airheart.

"At the boarding school I went to I knew more girls whose mothers were brides brought back after the Great War than you could shake a stick at."

Uncle Ralphie hastily interjected, "Before we go any further, I should make it clear that each of you is from a different time period. The Captain is from the 18th Century, Rex from the 19th, and Lily from the 20th. Your quest will require you to journey to a reality - a plane, as it were - where time is fluid and in some ways exists all at once, and you will have to combine your knowledge and skills in order to be victorious. It must be you three, though there are others who will offer you assistance along the way."

"Why us specifically?" Miss Airheart asked.

"There is a man named Gormely, in a place far away from here, who sold his soul for dark and terrible powers. The even darker and more terrible forces he bargained with have come to collect, but he has managed to hide from them, and in their determination to get what is rightfully theirs they are now causing chaos absolutely everwhere and everywhen else. He's a selfish cur, though, and doesn't care who suffers as long as he stays safe. The three of you have intricate ties with all the other forces of good who have agreed to help. In addition, you represent the elements of Land, Sea, and Air, and this is critical. Since we can't afford to waste any time, I have prepared booklets with the information you will require, one copy for each of you. I also have three tickets for each of you, nine in all."

"I can do arithmetic," Rex groused, realizing that if this man were telling the truth it was important to cooperate, but also resenting his high-handed manner.

"I know you can. Now, follow me and I will take you to your first means of transportation. The captain and crew will be expecting you - and yes, Lily, they are aware of all your dietary requirements."

Miss Airheart seemed positively gobsmacked. "How do you know about that?"

Uncle Ralphie gave her an odd, sad smile. "All things in due time."

......

It took all three of them a moment to adjust themselves to a thought of a ship that could sail among the stars, containing all the air and warmth they would need for the journey within its metal shell, but Rex decided that he would adopt an attitude of rolling with the punches. Fortunately his compatriots also seemed well-equipped to cope with oddities much more quickly than the average person.

Once Uncle Ralphie had introduced the groups to one another on the "pier" deep within the bowels of some enormous tunnel he took their leave with the parting words, "You'll be in good hands."

It was a lovely vessel, even with Rex never having seen anything he could really compare it to before. Its body was in three sections with two large panels jutting off from its "back", a "head" with two large round windows reminiscent of eyes, and its rearmost segment having alternate portions of whirring mechanics and what looked like slices of golden light.

The captain of the ship saw his appreciative gaze. "She's lovely, isn't she? They don't make a lot of the Honeybee models any longer but with a good mechanic they'll never let you down." Like the other two members of his party who had emerged to meet them, he wore dark boots and an all-covering garment of sturdy black fabric.

"What's her name?" Miss Airheart asked.

The captain gestured for them to follow himself, his first mate, and his pilot before answering. As they walked up the ramp Rex did not fail to notice that the first mate, whose appearance identical to the captain in every way save for having a shaved head and being a little shorter, was holding hands with the curly-haired woman who served as their navigator. The captain clearly was used to such things. "She's the S.S. Friendship. Best kind of ship you can be on."

"Did the man who delivered us to you make any provisions for our clothing and supplies?" asked Albert Alexander. "I don't want to tax your hospitality but the fact remains I only have the clothes on my back, the sword around my waist, and whatever bullets may remain in my pistol."

"Uncle Ralphie gave us a brand-new replicator as payment, so that not only covers your passage several times over but will help us feed and clothe you in better style than we could have otherwise," said the first mate.

Rex noticed there were two sets of doors before entering the actual vessel, but that made sense to keep air from escaping. "This is all very new to me, and I assume to Captain Alexander and Miss Airheart as well."

"You can call me Lily, everyone does."

The pilot beamed at her as she pressed a sequence of buttons she clearly knew by rote, and replied, "Then call me Law. Everyone does."

"We don't stand much on ceremony, even when Raptor tries to enforce it," said the first mate, smirking. "I go by Doe. I'll help you match names and faces later, but the final lady aboard is our mechanic, Claws. The additional gentlemen are the cook and general custodian named Luke, our hired muscle who demands to be called Dragon although we're fairly certain that's not his original handle, Merker the medic, and Merker's little brother Sprog who's some kind of genius but also isn't quite...there...so treat him gently and let us know if he gives you any trouble." 

The second set of doors opened, and the party stepped through. Raptor called out, "Our passengers are here; prepare for launch sequence!"

And immediately afterwards, Doe exclaimed, "Sprog, sweetheart, don't unicycle on the deck railing, you'll fall..."

Rex thought whatever this business had been a ticket to, it certainly wasn't tedium, no siree.

[TBC]

**Author's Note:**

> \- Uncle Ralphie lost his eye in a tragic tuba accident. The image of it on his eyepatch is to remind himself of his foolhardiness and what it cost him, so he never makes such a mistake again.
> 
> \- Uncle Ralphie's appearance is somewhat inspired by an awesome picture of a dark-skinned gentleman in steampunk gear floating around tumblr, and somewhat by how I realized how much "Suspenders Initiative" sounds like something else and if this fic isn't about making references to as many things as possible I don't know what it's about at all. Also since the album art shows the Suspender Man as quite dark-skinned I wanted a positive POC character to counterbalance most of the good guys being white. I'll have a few others, like the cowboy who is also a samurai once they get to the Train that Has a Face.
> 
> -In some varieties of English "suspenders" means what Americans call "garters". 
> 
> -Yes, everything related to the S.S. Friendship is heavily inspired by Firefly/Serenity, especially "Sprog" as a more whimsical and less lethal River Tam.
> 
> -In case you didn't get it, female rabbits are called "does".
> 
> -I decided not to include Matthew Elton Smith because though I love him he doesn't have multiple alter egos within the Lore like everyone else does.


End file.
